Howl
by Shini no Miko
Summary: {Complete.} For Remus Lupin, dreams begin to become reality as the world he's always known collapses. {SBRL slash!}
1. PROLOGUE: Starving Hysterical Naked

Notes:  
Hey, guys. Here's a Harry Potter fic. I happen to think it's pretty good, but who knows. It's inspired by the Allen Ginsberg poem, which I think is really appropriate to describe the post-Voldemort's-rise wizarding community.  
So -- Enjoy guys!  
! me  
  


Title: Howl  
Author: Shini no Miko/Nirohmy  
Rating: PG-13-ish  
Pairing: SBRL (That's slash, you ninnies, so be forewarned)  
Summary: For Remus Lupin, dreams begin to become reality as the world he's always known collapses.  
Feedback: Mais, oui!  
Archive: Here at fanfiction.net. Anywhere else, ask and ye shall doubtless recieve.  
Disclaimer. The characters and places (mostly) discussed herein belong to J.K. Rowling and her affiliates. The dreams are mine, so please respect that.  
  


_  
  
_HOWL_  
_

  


  
  
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,  
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,  
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night . . .  


  


-- Allen Ginsberg,   


  
PROLOGUE:  
STARVING HYSTERICAL NAKED  
  
From The Falling Out: Life After 1981, by Violet Dawney-Shaww, originally published in Wizard's World Quarterly, June, 1990.  
  
After the Pureblood Panic of 1833, it was noted in a February, 1834, report to the Wizegamot that nearly half the wizarding population was either Muggle-born or of mixed ancestry. The trend has continued, and today, only a fraction of the families in the wizarding community can count themselves as entirely pureblood. Some have called this magical diaspora tragic', and others maintain that the International Statue of Wizarding Secrecy is the only thing preventing the intermingling of blood between Wizards and Muggles from undoing over a thousand years of careful cultural segregation. Whether the prediction that our two societies will eventually desegregate remains to be proved.  
  
What we can be sure of is that, since the middle of the 19th century, there has been a steady, subversive backlash against so-called Mudbloods.' (The term itself was coined in 1835 by Dorkas Miglinn in her reactionary Treatise on Breeding and Ancestry, and has, since the start, been a slur not commonly used in polite company.) Whether this aversion was commonly publicised before 1833 is not entirely clear, but that is a matter of speculation for an essay other than this one. The Mudblood Massacre of 1892 is a prime example of the hatred some wizards harbored for those of mixed ancestry, and also illustrates the terrible harm it can do. Although no one will be able to tell the final outcome of these tensions, modern scholars have considered the rise of the Dark Lord in this century to be an extension of an issue that is hundreds of years old.  
  
After the events of the mid- to late-1970s, it became clear that the magical diaspora' that concerned You-Know-Who and his followers was not the only problem at hand. He Who Must Not Be Named's rise to infamy has left the Wizarding community in a state of deep unrest such as we have not seen in nearly a millenium. We have been left in peace, finally, but the chaos wrought in decades past is not yet righted. Whether the cultural upheaval that has resulted is being dealt with properly is an issue that has never been adequitely addressed, but, more importantly, we must consider how it can be resolved.


	2. PART I: Grey Sky Rising

  
  


_I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.  
_  
-- Aeschylus, Agamemnon_  
_

  
PART I:_  
_GREY SKY RISING  
  
On December 11, 1981, Remus Lupin slipped on the icy steps on his way into his house. His feet went out from under him and he fell off the step, landing flat on his back on the cold, damp gravel with a heavy, grating sound. He was clutching his bag, full of scrolls and books, to his chest with one hand, and it was an oppressive weight above his lungs. His other hand rested, palm up, on a lump of hard, dirty snow that had refrozen, like most of the landscape, in the midst of melting. He blinked slowly.   
  
Before his eyes, the pale grey sky was rising like water filling a glass, swallowing up the weak, yellow, afternoon sun. Soon, he thought, it would reach the tickling fingers of the treeline, and then, successful, disappear beyond the horizon. The sky around the sun was a pale, virulent green, and seemed to be protesting its usurpation by the heartless clouds.  
  
The wet of the ground seeped into his robes. After a moment, he got to his feet, the back of his head throbbing a little. He made his way up the stairs, more carefully this time, but also more deliberately, crushing old ice beneath his boots and tempting fate. He let himself into his small, drafty house and dropped his bag on a nearby armchair. Shutting the door behind himself, Remus Lupin leaned against the wall and felt more aware of the value of his own life than he believed he ever had.  
  
  
  
That evening, he sat at his window, polishing a copper pot. He had wedged himself in the window seat, one foot resting against the window frame opposite him, and was watching the moon rise through the whorled, grainy glass. Again and again, he passed his cloth over the pot in his hands, wiping the same place relentlessly, studying the moon's progress. It was a huge, yellow sphere, rising up out of the trees into a cloud-smeared sky. Tomorrow, it would be full, and he would lock himself in his basement to scream and rage as he wished. For the time being, he would hold onto himself. He could do it. It was not even another twenty-four hours until he would be able to release his fury.  
  
As he wiped at the metal in his hands, he let his eyes fix on the ominous jewel, hanging in the sky. It rose steadily, becoming smaller and whiter, until it was high above the clutching treetops, esconsed in a glowing, pale halo, skirted by soft clouds. There was not a star in sight until the moon passed higher, beyond the gap in the clouds, leaving two bright stares lingering in its wake.  
  
When the moon had disappeared from sight, he got up from the windowsill, hanging the pot on a rack above the stove. He put the rag away in a drawer, shutting it with a neat, contained noise. Extinguishing the lights in the kitchen, he climbed the creaking stairs to the second floor. There were no hand rails to hold onto; he had grown up knowing to step carefully.  
  
In his bedroom, he lit one lamp with a flick of his wand and closed the curtains that looked out onto the back yard, knowing that the moonlight would wake him if he didn't shut it out. He pulled off his robes and hung them in a battered wardrobe made of the same wood as the stairs. It, too, creaked under use. He pulled off his clothes, putting them away neatly, and slipped into a night shirt. The back of his head, and his shoulders, still felt tender from his fall earlier, and he found it uncomfortable to turn his head. Taking hold of the wardrobe door, he was preparing to close it when he caught site of himself in the mirror fixed on the inside of the door. The glass was dingy, and he seemed a shadow in it. He closed the wardrobe and crossed the room. With another flick of his wand, he lit a fire in the hearth and put out the lamp. Then he lay down on the cool, white sheets of his bed, pulled the rumpled blankets over himself, and, turning over, fell asleep.  
  
  
  
It began in a dark, muddy forest: He was following a trail, although he couldn't see it in the misty, dim light. He simply knew this path was there -- that it had to be, perhaps. As he kept walking, the mossy trees thinned, those that remained becoming skeletal, and the sky showed through, hot and clear and bright blue. The ground became brittle.  
  
When the last sickly tree was far behind him, he found himself on a wide, gravel road in the midst of an expanse of orange desert. The wind was slowly picking up, swirling fine dust across the bare landscape, making his think, black cloak flap helplessly. Up ahead, the gravel road forked in two, stretching out as far as the eye could see towards the horizon. He turned around to find the the forest had utterly vanished, and the gravel road continued on behind him, too, cutting through the orange earth. At the fork in the road before him, there was a beaten signpost, worn grey by weather, one marker pointing in either direction, both blank.  
  
And then Sirius Black were there, in a torn grey tunic, his hair long and greasy and lice-ridden. His face looked empty as he stood at the fork in the road. He stepped up to Remus, and started screaming. Remus cringed, feeling Black's hot, rank breath on his face. He could see Black's dull, yellow teeth behind his snarling, white, chapped lips. Black's dull eyes widened, the tendons in his throat straining as he screamed. But Remus could hear nothing. Black's mouth was moving, but Remus could not make out what he was saying.  
  
It continued that way, for what seemed like years -- Black screaming and howling, furious, anguished, and tears began streaming down his dirty, sunken cheeks, becoming lost in his long beard. The delicate orange dust continued to lift off the dry ground like sheets billowing in the wind. Sometimes, it passed around Remus like a cloud, but never obscured his vision. Remus could feel himself relaxing, his horror receeding. He looked at Black full in the face, unafraid. He could not hear Black, but Black kept screaming. Remus watched, until it seemed that there was nothing left of the man before him save the silence that surrounded them.  
  
Remus blinked, in the dream, and it was over.  
  
  
  
He woke very early in the morning. The light behind the curtains was still sickly and undefined and the bedroom was dark. He woke not only knowing that the full moon would rise tonight, but feeling it in his bones, like the tug of a receding wave against one's calves. The base and back of his neck ached. He sighed, and curled up more tightly under the warm blankets, straining the muscles in his back. If he kept his eyes shut, he would not see the empty side of the bed. If he did not reach out, he would not feel the cold sheets on the empty side of the bed. If he went back to sleep, perhaps he would never wake up.  
  
Sleep did not come. He lay there, still, for as long as he could bear. But the restlessness, the painful restlessness that required him to keep moving, did not leave him alone for long. Soon enough, he was throwing the bedclothes back, exposing his bare legs to the cold air. He sat up and swung his legs out, off the mattress, which dipped under his shifting weight, poised to swallow him up. He would have to take the mattress off the bed soon and turn it. It was getting lumpy. His feet hit the floor resolutely, with a pair of dull thuds one so close to the other that they nearly seemed one sound. The floor, which was highly polished, seemed a frozen pond as he stood up. It seemed the color of dried blood.  
  
He put on a pair of loose pants and picked up his wand off the bedside table. He filled the basin with cold water with a flick of his wand and washed his face. The cold water ran down, over his jaw, making tracks down his throat like tears and, sliding under his shirt, slithered down his chest before being absorbed. He splashed more water on his face, rubbing his icy fingers over his hot eyelids. His eyes burned from fatigue or oncoming illness. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyelids and sniffed. Then, wiping the water from beneath his nose, he dried his face with an old towel, inhaling deeply of the smell of soap and wind-dried laundry.  
  
There was no point in engaging in any further grooming today. He merely patted his neck dry and left the towel on the table, where it had been for days. Its little hook remained abandoned on the side of the wash stand. He went back to the bedroom to put on a grey sweater and went downstairs to make tea.  
  
He would not be going to work today. He did not feel like it. They would fire him soon, and he would not blame them. As Remus put the kettle on the range, he wondered who would come to tell him he'd let himself go. He knew the answer, and was secretly glad of it: No one would come.  
  
  
  
On days such as this, or, worse yet, when he could not bring himself to get out of bed, he would read. Today, he was sitting in the dusky study, curled up in the threadbare, wing-backed arm chair, with a mug of tea sitting on the floor, growing more and more forlornly lukewarm. He was presently attempting to drag himself through the fifth chapter of _How Morgana Le Fay Returned to Camelot_, a tome of considerably heavy prose by Flavius Ragetti.  
  
When he found his eyelids closing of their own account, he marked his page and shut the book. He put it down next to his cold cup of tea and stood up. On the end table next to the sofa, there was another mug of tea, at least three or four days old. Another teacup, this one fine, cracked china, an abandoned spoon still in it, lay on the floor near the sofa. Yet another cup sat on the writing desk by the window, older still and probably mildewed. An afghan lay in a rumpled heap on the sofa, the pillows askew.  
  
Rising, he walked out of the study and away from the growing chaos of the room. He found himself walking up the stairs without considering his destination, and, again, shutting the bathroom door behind himself before he had even thought about it. He locked the door, though he could not imagine who would intrude on him, and filled the white tub with steaming hot water. Slowly, mindful of his sore neck, he pulled off his clothing, dropping it on the wooden floor by the head of the tub. As he undressed, he looked out on the back yard. In a few hours' time, the moon would be crawling up past those abysmal, reaching trees and into the dark night. The sky outside the window now was cold and cloudless, blank. When his clothes were all piled by the chipped, clawed foot of the tub, he stepped into the turquoise water, and slowly sank down into it. His skin flushed and seethed as he did so, and he broke out into a sweat, but he did not let this stop him.  
  
He lay there in the water, resting his aching neck against the smooth rim of the bath tub, his hair trailing in the water. His forearms rested against the slick, hot, bottom of the tub, and the water lapped slightly over his chest, disturbed by his slow breathing. As he had in the study, he felt his eyes slowly closing, and he came to the conclusion that it had not been the considerably heavy prose that had been putting him to sleep.  
  
  
  
He was back in the Great Hall, crouched on the stone floor, picking up rolls of parchment and quills and books and shoving them back into his school bag. Around him, the sound of people talking hummed like insect noise as students finished their breakfast. His eyes were fixed, however, on the retreating back of Severus Snape. Remus knew this to be a memory. This was fourth year, when Snape had hexed his satchel into breaking, spilling all of his things out onto the floor. Then, the other Marauders had been standing behind him, jeering at Snape. Now, however, Sirius was not there to curse Snape from behind, and James and Peter were not there to laugh when Snape's hair and robes turned hot pink. He was, in fact, alone, save for Snape, who was about to disappear from sight. Hurriedly, Remus threw the last of his things into his bag and set off after Snape.  
  
In truth, he didn't dare follow too closely, but he kept Snape's narrow, dark form within sight. Remus watched his lank, oily hair sway as he walked, noticed the way the hem of his heavy robe skimmed the floor. They walked through the halls like ghosts, alone except for the Grey Lady, who merely floated past them once without acknowledging either of them. Even the portraits were strangely distant, unresponsive and immobile. Snape walked quickly, purposefully, almost as if he were guiding Remus somewhere. He was beginning to wonder why Snape hadn't acknowledged him, why he hadn't turned around and looked at him.  
  
Before he had worked up the courage to call out to him, Snape had reached a door which opened out onto the portico. He opened it and stepped out into a courtyard. He walked over the hard dirt, past a fountain, housed by solitary arch, delicate and ruin-like, in the center of the yard. The light outside was pale and weak, and it was clearly very early morning. Remus stood for a moment, looking at the exquisite arch over the fountain before following Snape again.  
  
They went right across the courtyard and through a short, dark hallway, which led them to the other side of the building. The cool, wet morning air disappeared behind them as Snape walked briskly through the deserted halls. Remus thought he might walk through Hogwarts for his entire life, following Snape exactly as he was now, and die on his feet. But, finally, Snape pushed open a heavy, oak door and stepped outside again. As they went over the lawn, the morning dew soaked into the hems of their robes and dampened their shoes. Snape continued walking south, undeterred and apparently unaware of Remus. By the time the lake was in sight, Remus' feet were cold and he was making a slight squelching noise with every step he took.  
  
They were about to pass the old beech tree when Snape stopped suddenly and wheeled around. Remus, who was not expecting this, kept walking towards him for a moment, but then pulled up short. It was not Snape looking back at him, but Sirius, with a stern look on his face. His lips were pursed, his hollow eyes staring straight at Remus. He stepped forward, and Remus noticed the Gryffindor badge on his robes, the gold threads glimmering a little. When the space between them had been closed, Sirius reached out and slid one of his hands through Remus' hair, tilting his head to the side. Sirius leaned in and kissed Remus, his other arm wrapping around Remus' waist. Remus felt half-dead in his arms, and let himself be bent backwards as they kissed, Sirius' chest pressing up against his.  
  
Before he knew what was happening, Sirius was putting him down on the hard, dry ground and letting him go. He opened his eyes, unsure of when they had closed, and saw Sirius standing up, looming over him. Around Remus were the bars of his cage and, beyond that, the earthen walls of the basement of his family home. He looked back to Sirius, and noticed that James and Lily were standing behind him, to Sirius' left, and Peter, too, was there, to Sirius' right. They all looked on as Sirius closed the door to Remus' cage and did up the nine iron locks with nine iron keys on a huge iron ring. Then he slipped the ring around his neck, the keys clinked into place over Sirius' heart, and James, Lily, and Peter were gone.  
  
Sirius pulled up a plain, wooden chair and sat backwards in it, the keys clinking on his chest as he moved. He crossed his arms over the back of the chair and rested his chin on his wrist. Remus got up off his back and sat up in the cage, which was spacious, large enough to accommodate the wolf, though not large enough to allow it any room to run or gain sufficient momentum to break out. There was space enough, Remus knew, for the wolf to throw itself against the bars again and again, but they had never broken, nor shown any sign of ever giving way.  
  
Let me back out, Remus said, getting on his knees and crawling over to the door of the cage. He wrapped his hands around the bars and looked out at Sirius.  
  
Sirius, who had been watching Remus intently, smiled. he said warningly. You can never go back. With that, he tore a page out of the book that was sitting in his lap and began to fold it into something. He worked on this for some time, his eyes downcast and his face in shadow, without saying another word. Remus watched him relentlessly, waiting, although for what, he did not know. He did not think to berate Sirius for ruining the book; he could not, in fact, think of saying anything in this oppressive silence. Presently, his mother came in, wearing her favorite grey robes, and, keeping to the shadows, put a silver pitcher on a small table that Remus knew did not belong in the room. Then she turned around and walked out, her soft robes making a quiet slithering noise. Sirius paused for a moment in his folding and took hold of the silver pitcher. He poured what seemed to be water into a silver tumbler and drank from it, his eyes on Remus as he did so. They stared at each other for a long time before he put the tumbler back down. Smirking at Remus, he went back to his piece of paper.  
  
Remus wondered whether the moon would rise soon. He looked around the room, but, of course, there were no windows, and so he returned his gaze to the crown of Sirius' head. His dark hair was obscuring any view of his face now. Remus could only hear the crinkling sound of paper being handled. Presently, even this stopped, and Sirius looked up at him again, his expression severe, as it had been by the lake. He held out one hand, in which an ornately folded sailing ship rested. Sirius dropped his hand out from under it and its sails billows and it floated towards Remus, propelled by some invisible wind. Remus leaned back to watch it, putting his weight on his arms and coming closer and closer to lying back down on the packed dirt floor. Finally, the ship stopped, hovering in midair high above his face. He saw its yellowed paper hull as though he were looking up at it through the water. It wavered there, as if waiting for something.  
  
  
  
He looked up from the bottom of the tub and took a startled breath. Then he choked and sat up, coughing and gagging, water streaming down his face and stinging his eyes, which were watering, too. He coughed until his throat hurt, getting all of the lukewarm water out of his lungs. He spat repeatedly into the tub, more out of anger than necessity. He rubbed his eyes and smoothed his wet hair out of his face, plastering it down on his skull. He rubbed at his aching eyes, his heart pounding furiously.  
  
  
  
Remus walked down the corridor between the long, nearly-empty tables, enchanted snow falling without making anything colder or wetter. At the far end of the Gryffindor table, near the staff table, a boy was juggling four large, perfect oranges, singing a song. The words of his song were, at this distance, indistinct, garbled as they echoed through the hollow Great Hall. Four or five other students sat near him, watching and laughing, that sound dull and throbbing, instead of clear and discrete. The oranges made high, neat arcs through the snowy air. Every once in a while, the boy shook his head like an animal, tossing his fine, black hair out of his eyes.  
  
Finally, Remus reached the small group of students and sat down on the bench opposite the juggling boy. Everything seemed to slow down, the boy's movements, those of the children around him, everything; the brilliant oranges sailing through the air seemed to move through a different, more dense medium. As he stood across from the juggling boy, he realized that all sound had been muted out, save for a high-pitched wailing noise, like a wolf's keening howl. The boy's dark hair shimmered in the candlelight, the full, round oranges passing in front of his face like planets in orbit.  
  
  
  
The wind was howling murderously through the brittle trees when Remus awoke. He could hear it even here, below the ground, in this windowless prison of a room. For a few minutes, he did not open his eyes, because he did not want to be confronted by the darkness of the empty room. The pain in his muscles, in his own bones, was enough to keep him company for the moment.  
  
He could not honestly say which was harder: Waking up on the morning after the full moon, or waking up every other morning. Some days, they seemed equally unhappy events.  
  
But, sure enough, Remus found it in himself to pull his aching body up off the hard floor and get to his knees. By the time he had crawled on his blooby hands and knees to the edge of his cage and grasped his wand in his fist, he almost didn't feel like undoing the charms holding the door fast. He briefly imagined casting his wand away and leaving himself to die here in this cage, curled up like a starved beast.  
  
Tempting though the thought was, he freed himself and staggered out of the basement and up into a quickly-conjured bath. Remus did not move again for a considerable amount of time.


	3. PART II: Decembers

  


_Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December  
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.  
  
_-- Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven  


  
PART II:  
DECEMBERS  
  
They lay in bed, silent now, for the first time in what seemed like years. Their skin was sticky with half-dried sweat, their eyes glassy and dark and wild, their heartbeats only just beginning to slow down.  
  
Remus lay there, staring up at the white ceiling. Sirius rolled over to face his lover and put a hand on his bony hip.   
  
Remus said. He looked down at the wrinkled, off-white bed linens with almost meditative concentration and hoped that Sirius would say nothing for a while.  
  
When his lover remained silent, Remus looked up, surprised. Sirius was seldom ever quiet in his presence, save when he was asleep -- Which, as it happened, was exactly the case at this particular moment. Sirius had, indeed, fallen asleep, his dark hair spread out like the light of a dying star around his handsome face. The candle's flame flickered in the draft, the light casting ephemeral highlights on his hair. Remus was reminded of late nights spent in Gryffindor Common Room, years ago. He remembered looking up from his Potions textbook countless times in a night to admire the way Sirius' hair reflected the firelight. It seemed, sometimes, that Remus was always admiring Sirius.  
  
In truth, though it had indeed been years since they'd sat in the Gryffindor Tower, it had not been that many years ago. They were both still young, so young, and lying here reminiscing made him feel very old. It was not uncommon for Remus to feel old, however, and it was a sensation he had grown accustomed to. He had realized very early on that he would spend most, if not all, of his life feeling old.  
  
Instead of lingering any longer on these thoughts, he slid down the bed so that his face was even with Sirius', and pulled the blankets over them. Outside, the clouds were threatening snow, and the air in the room was quickly growing cold on his damp skin. He kissed Sirius' thin, soft lips and pulled the blankets close around him before tucking his arm neatly around Sirius' waist.  
  
Here, he was safe, he was quite sure. Neither snow nor sky nor wind nor water could harm him here, in bed with the man he cared for more than his own life. He was certain, in the brief moments before he fell asleep, that no wrong could ever be done them.  
  
  
  
Remus had always believed in the power of dreams, in the strength of one's most unconscious thoughts. When he was very small, he had even believed that dreams could be portentous, but by the time he had begun Divination in his third year at Hogwarts, he had left most of those notions far behind. But even when telling the future was out of the question, Remus still believed that his dreams reflected his waking life with striking accuracy.  
  
So it was no surprise that midnight found him sitting up in bed beside his lover, agonizing over the details of his most recent half-remembered dream. He found, more now than ever, that his dreams were slipping away from him, and he feared losing them all together. Many nights found him in a similar position, silently reliving the fragments of dreams.   
  
Once, his dreams had been exceptionally vivid, and he had delighted in spending hours telling his mother about them in precise detail. He could still remember those old stories almost perfectly, though he never shared them with anyone. He held onto them like heirlooms, like gold, to be treasured and kept secret.  
  
This dream, in particular, had been dark. At some point, the candles in the dream had all gone out, and he had wandered around in the black behind his eyelids for what seemed like hours. Reflecting on it, Remus shuddered and crossed his arms over his chest. He hoped silently that his lover would not wake up for a long time.  
  
Perhaps, he reflected, it was only nerves. They were in the midst of a dark time, there was no denying that, and so it shouldn't come as any surprise if he dreamed about dark things. But, still, it worried him. The blackness that had closed in around him in his dream seemed suffocating even now, and something deep inside him could feel the dark wrapping its cold fingers around his heart. He worried, felt restless, wanted to leap from the warmth of his bed and run, flee, hide for forty years. He wondered where his sense of security had gone.  
  
Slowly, quietly, he got out of bed, careful not to wake Sirius. He walked across the cold hardwood floor and dressed silently. He opened the bedroom door into the pitch-black hallway and stepped out of the bedroom. He turned and, pressing one hand against the door frame, the other holding the rusty latch up, he slowly eased the bedroom door shut, leaning towards the closing gap between door and frame like a child eavesdropping. When the door was finally shut, he breathed a sigh of relief and walked into the kitchen. The stone floor of the kitchen was even colder than the bedroom floor, but the quiet of the flat was least oppressive here. The kitchen faced out onto the street and even this late at night, the occasional car still rumbled by. In the bedroom, the only sound that kept him company at night was that of his lover's peaceful breathing, which, at best, was a bitter consort.   
  
He didn't dare put a kettle on, for fear of waking Sirius, nor did he want to light a lamp. Instead, he curled into one of the chairs around the kitchen table, pulled his feet up, off the frigid floor, and endeavored to wait for morning.  
  
  
  
It was not much brighter than it had been hours earlier, but Remus knew it was morning by the influx of noise coming from the street below. With morning had come powdery, light snow, descending lazily from the ashen sky. He did not remember when it had started snowing, which seemed to suggest that he had fallen asleep at some point during the night. He couldn't remember falling asleep, but neither could he remember the greater part of the last six hours. All in all, he was glad he had slept. He was tired enough as it was, without losing sleep over half-forgotten dreams.  
  
As he got up to put a kettle on, he stretched, attempting to work the kinks out of his neck. He told himself that he would have to stop falling asleep upright, or he would do permanent damage to his spine. It was then that he realized he didn't have his wand, and he wandered back to the bedroom to get it. He opened the door very carefully and crept, catlike, into the room. Sirius was still asleep, his back to Remus' side of the bed, his bare arms resting on top of the blankets. Remus put a sweater on and smoothed down the sheets on his side of the bed. Then he took up his wand from the bedside table and, giving Sirius one last glance, left the bedroom just as quietly as he had come. He found that he was unspeakably relieved that Sirius has not awoken.  
  
Once he was back in the kitchen, he Summoned a pair of teacups and saucers. He filled the teakettle with water and tapped one of the burners with his wand to set it alight before putting the kettle down on top of it. He took milk and butter from the ice box and sugar from the cupboard, and arranged them at the center of the table. As he was rooting around in the bread box, there was a tap at the frosty kitchen window.  
  
He crossed to the window and let in a small barn owl. It shook snow from its feathers and hooted dolefully before dropping its copy of The Daily Prophet into Remus' hands and sticking out its leg. Just a moment, Remus told the owl, and went to collect its fee. As he deposited the coins in bag tied to the owl's leg, Remus thought that he could not blame it for being miserable. The air coming in from the open window alone left the kitchen bitterly cold. Once Remus had tied up the pouch on its leg, the owl hooted once more and departed. Remus shut the window quickly and did not watch the owl as it winged its way over the rooftops. Instead, he turned away from window and the cold air around it, retrieved a loaf of bread, and began to make breakfast.  
  
Halfway through his second piece of toast, he heard Sirius moving around in the bathroom. He listened to the shower running and thought about a time when he might have gotten up and joined his lover there. That time hadn't been so very long ago. Instead, however, he took another sip of tea and continued reading News of the Nation.  
  
The dregs in Remus' teacup had long since gone cold when Sirius came into the kitchen. Remus looked up from the want ads when he felt warm, damp hands on his shoulders and Sirius pressed a gentle kiss to the back of his head. Sirius said, and sat down across the table from him, the heat behind him gone as quickly as it had come.  
  
Good morning, Remus replied, and put the paper down long enough to reheat the teakettle, which was sitting on a hot plate in the middle of the table. The water inside it began to boil and then the whistle sounded shrilly.  
  
Sirius said and poured hot water his teacup.  
  
You're welcome. Remus slid the A section of the Prophet across the table. I put the milk back in the ice box, if you want it.  
  
Sirius got up to retrieve the milk. As he sat back down, he glanced at Remus, who didn't appear to notice, as he was making himself a fresh cup of tea. You got up early this morning, he said.  
  
Not that early, Remus said.   
  
Couldn't you sleep again? Sirius asked. He took a piece of toast and put it on his plate.   
  
I slept all right, Remus lied. His eyes were fixed on the water in his cup, which was slowly turning a pretty amber color.  
  
I didn't even hear you get up. He studied Remus' tired face as he spread jam across his toast.  
  
Well, you're a heavy sleeper. There was a silence between them, and a truck clattered noisily down the street. I thought--  
  
Let's go shopping today, Moony, Sirius said, stepping on Remus' words. Sorry, what?  
  
Remus said. He was growing anxious for his tea to brew. Where did you want to go shopping?  
  
Well, Diagon Alley, for one. Sirius took a bite of his toast.  
  
Haven't we been there at least a dozen times since the start of the month? Remus asked, though he really wasn't complaining.  
  
At least that, but I still haven't finished my shopping.  
  
You're a dreadful shopper, Sirius. You're absolutely dreadful. I don't know how you convince me to come with you any longer.  
  
It's my charm, Sirius said matter-of-factly. And the fact I'd be even worse if I didn't have you helping me.  
  
Remus sighed. It was true enough. Sirius could wander through a shop and see a hundred different things without deciding on any of them. All right, fine. You win. Who do you have left to shop for?  
  
James and Mundungus. I'd forgotten about Mun until yesterday, and as for James, I just can't decide. Sirius chewed on another bite of toast contemplatively.  
  
I bought something for Mundungus weeks ago, Remus said. We can give it to him from both of us.  
  
Sirius said through his mouthful of toast. A moment later, he swallowed. Just think of it, Moony. Nineteen days left til Christmas. It's hard to be worried when there're only nineteen days to Christmas. And it's snowing, besides.  
  
I suppose so, Remus said slowly. He took his strainer out of his cup and added two heaping spoonfuls of sugar, stirring them in meditatively. He knew Sirius was worried. He was worried, himself. James and Lily were worried, Peter was worried. And of course Dumbledore was worried. The worry, Remus felt, was drawing ever closer around all of them, and, no matter what Sirius said, there was no denying it.   
  
  
  
His whole body ached. After his bath, he'd healed his minor wounds and bandaged the more severe ones, and that had used up what energy he'd had left after dragging himself upstairs. It took more than he'd thought he had in him to pull on a bath robe and go downstairs to make tea. His arm shook as he tapped the teapot with his wand. He stood there, focusing himself to keep from falling down, until his tea had steeped. Once it had, he sat down in the window seat, leaning his sore back against the window frame, and drank his tea without any sugar. If he breathed evenly, the shaking seemed to let up a little, and so he simply tried to relax.  
  
He was so very tired, so awfully and perpetually tired. He leaned his hot, damp forehead against a chilly windowpane and closed his eyes. The mug of tea burned hot like a coal on his thigh, but he couldn't bring himself to move it.  
  
Just think of it, Moony, somebody said. Nineteen days left til Christmas. It's hard to be worried when there're only nineteen days to Christmas. And it's snowing, besides.  
  
Remus opened his eyes and looked out the window. It was difficult to focus, at first, and look through the whorled glass instead of at it directly. For a moment, he thought he saw a dark shape reflected in the windowpane, but then he remembered that he was supposed to be looking for snow. Only hard remnants of old snow speckled the sickly grass of the back yard. The sky was clear blue and the wind was bending the weaker trees in the yard nearly in half. The glass fogged up from his breath.  
  
It isn't snowing, he said shortly, and turned back to look at Sirius.  
  
But Sirius wasn't there. Only a half-empty teacup sat on the table, which, when Remus touched it, was as cold as the air around it.


	4. PART III: Ghosts

_There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world._  
  
-- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Selecting a Ghost  


  
PART III:  
GHOSTS  
  
Every house needs at least one ghost, Sirius told him once.  
  
Remus had looked at him, appalled. You're joking.  
  
Sirius smiled. Not at all. New houses, they're dull. Empty. You need people who've lived in a place. You need proof the house's alive.  
  
After a time, Remus asked, Does your house have ghosts? and hoped that he had not crossed some boundary line.  
  
Sirius fell silent. He gazed into the fire sourly, his lip curled up and his eyes only revealing half their depth.   
  
I'm sorry, Remus said quietly. I didn't mean anything by it. I won't mention it again.  
  
After heaving a deep sigh, Sirius said, No . . . It's fine. He paused. We don't have ghosts anymore. My dad -- he-- Well, he had m all banished.  
  
  
  
Yeah. When I was a kid. We had loads of ghosts when I was little, and then Dad called in this bloke, and he banished m all.  
  
Do you miss them? Remus asked, hesitant to speak for fear of offending his friend again.  
  
Who, the ghosts?  
  
Well . . . Yeah.  
  
Sirius looked back at him, his eyes dark in the firelight. Y'know the Bloody Baron, right?  
  
  
  
And you met my mum last winter, yeah?  
  
  
  
Imagine if they'd had carnivorous, sour-faced, whiny kids. Kind of like -- if Snape were a vampire. That's what our ghosts were like, the whole lot of   
  
  
  
So, no, I don't miss   
  
We never had any ghosts in my house, Remus ventured.  
  
It's better that way, Sirius said. He looked back at the fire.  
  
. . . It must be awful, to be a ghost, Remus said slowly, rubbing the pad of his index finger over his thumbnail. To live --or, or, exist for so long . . . ? To have been so, you know, so scared.  
  
I wouldn't want to be a ghost, Sirius said.  
  
Remus stared at his soft, pale palms. He didn't dare look at his friend. Neither would I, he said quietly. He glanced towards Sirius, but Sirius was no longer paying any attention.  
  
  
  
He'd brought home a cat. A sickly, thin, white and grey tabby that was losing its fur. He was quite certain the poor thing was on its last legs, but he didn't care.  
  
They'd just moved, partially to be closer to James and Lily, partially because Remus had just lost another job, and, most of all, because Dumbledore was worried about their safety. All the parts of Remus' life would have fallen apart eventually; it was only a matter of chance that they all happened to come to pieces at the same time.  
  
And so there he was, in Aylesbury on a wet day, in their first-floor Muggle apartment with the halogen light bulbs and the microwave and the plastic bath tub built into the wall. There he was in Aylesbury with a shivering, damp tabby that kept mewling pitifully, even though he'd dried it off and fed it and situated it in a pile of sheets near the radiator.  
  
By the time Sirius got home, Remus had levitated a chair into the hallway and was sitting with the cat in his lap, reading a book called _At Swim or Drowning_. The cat squeaked unhappily when the door opened and Sirius stepped inside, shaking water from his dark hair.  
  
Remus said pleasantly, not looking up from his book.  
  
What're you doing in the front hall? Sirius asked, pulling off his jacket, which was quite wet. He paused after he'd hung it up, having spotted the animal curled up in his lover's lap. What's that?  
  
Remus told him what it was.  
  
What've you got a cat for? Sirius didn't seem angry. He didn't seem angry yet, Remus amended silently.  
  
It followed me home, he said.  
  
_You_? It followed _you_ home? Sirius exclaimed, incredulous.  
  
Why wouldn't it? he asked mildly, marking the page in his book and putting it down on the arm of the chair. Sirius, you're dripping water all over the floor. Here-- Gently, he lifted the old cat from his lap and put her down amidst the warm sheets. She squeaked again, but stayed put. He hung the wet jacket on a hook beside the radiator. Take off your shoes and put them over there to dry. As Sirius did so, Remus moved the chair back into the front room. By the time he was done, Sirius was positioning his shoes by the radiator.  
  
I still don't see why you brought home a _cat_, Sirius said, as though it were some personal offense.  
  
You're soaked through. Remus lifted Sirius' damp sweater from his middle and proceeded to peel it away from his skin, finally pulling it up, over his head. I brought home a cat, he said, brushing a gentle kiss across Sirius' lips, because I felt sorry for her. She's dying.  
  
I don't want it to die here, Sirius said. Luckily, he was not as upset as Remus had been expecting him to be.  
  
They usually go hide some place before they die, Remus told him. His grandmother had kept numerous non-magical cats, along with a very magical and decidedly mean parrot named Clementina.  
  
Oh, wonderful. So we'll be wondering for days what that smell is and where the cat is, until one of us finds it dead, holed up in a cupboard, or something.  
  
Well, maybe . . .  
  
Sirius put his cold hands on Remus' upper arms, gentle. he said, I don't like cats.  
  
I know, but . . . please? She won't stay around very long.  
  
Can't we just give it to an animal shelter? It's not even magical.  
  
Remus sighed softly. If you really don't like it . . .  
  
I mean, we can't even really afford an owl, Moony. Pets are expensive.  
  
I know . . .  
  
Maybe another time. When I've got a full-time job, Sirius ventured.  
  
Remus thought that it could be years before that was possible again. The Order needed them too much. Neither of them had time to hold down a full-time job. All right, Remus said.  
  
Sirius ran his palms up and down Remus' arms soothingly. Pets are expensive. And, besides, who knows if we'll have to move again. It probably wouldn't like that very much. Moving.  
  
She won't be alive that long, Sirius.  
  
All the same . . .  
  
I know. It's fine, Remus said. Can we let her stay the night? There probably isn't an animal shelter open this late.  
  
It isn't that late, Sirius said.  
  
It's late for animal shelters. Do you mind keeping her just for one night?  
  
That's fine, as long as I don't have to sleep with it. Her. The cat mewled again and Sirius looked at the frail tabby as if she were swearing at him.  
  
Oh, good.  
  
Sirius turned to look at him. You haven't already named it have you?  
  
Remus asked, looking up, surprised. No . . .  
  
Are you going to?  
  
Remus fell silent and gazed down at the cat. She was looked up at him with wet, doleful eyes. He noticed that she was drooling. . . . It's just . . . she followed me home, Sirius, and nobody else wants her, the poor thing.  
  
I know, Moony, Sirius said with a sigh. But we can't keep a cat. It isn't practical.  
  
I know.  
  
In the morning, after Remus has gone to work, Sirius took the cat to an animal shelter. When Remus came home at one, both the cat and Sirius were gone from the apartment, and even the blankets were no longer heaped in front of the radiator.  
  
  
  
The brass pots hung in the kitchen, reflecting the early morning sun like relics. Remus stood in the doorway, studying the empty room. Sometimes he wondered how the sun could stand to rise every day. He'd been wondering it every morning for days, weeks, months. He was so tired. He didn't know how the sun could find the strength to rise when he could hardly find it within himself to breathe sometimes. But he hurt less than he had the day before, and he had come to the conclusion that this was the best he could hope for, at least for a long time.  
  
Remus filled the teakettle manually and set it on the stove. He didn't know if there were any matches in the house. He'd been using his wand for so long that he didn't keep track of things like matches anymore. His wand, however, was upstairs, and the journey up the stairs was too arduous at the moment, with his aching muscles. He shuffled around the kitchen, moving brokenly, looking in each drawer for matches. A pair of spiders had knitted thick webs across the interior of one of the drawers, covering the artifacts inside with their sticky gauze. Remus could not bring himself to disturb their skillful work, and he couldn't imagine there were matches under there, anyway. Another drawer, this one wide and deep, was stuffed full of newspapers dated between 1967 and 1983. The photographs were yellowed, but still moving, their subjects blinking up at him sleepily. He pulled all the brittle newsprint out, looking at each section only briefly before dropping it on the floor.  
  
He let the last piece of newspaper fall to the stone floor. His legs were shaking, as were his fingers. In the fifth drawer he opened, under a moldy oven mitt, there was a box of matches, damp as if it had been sweating beneath the pot holder for years. The musky scent of rotting paper and wood now filled the kitchen aggressively, soaking into everything. He knew that if he were to smell his own hands, they would smell like decaying paper.  
  
Taking up the box of matches, he went back to the stove. The cardboard box was weak and soft and seemed poised to collapse upon itself, but Remus retrieved a match regardless. He struck it against the rough strip on the side of the box, but nothing happened. He tried again, and the corner of the box broke. He struck the match again, and still nothing happened. He dropped the match to the floor and tried again with another, holding onto the broken wall of the box to keep it from giving way. This match broke in two, as did the next one. The fourth, fifth, and sixth matches all had their red tips scraped bare before Remus dropped them to the floor. It was the seventh match that, miraculously, caught fire, but Remus was so surprised that he accidentally burned one of his fingers and dropped the match to the floor in shock. There, its flame licked against some old newspaper, and Remus ground his foot into the burning paper before the fire could spread. The soles of his feet were thickly calloused, so it wasn't too painful.  
  
As he was sucking on his finger, waiting to stop shaking before he attempted to light another match, an owl appeared outside the window. Abandoning his matches, he went to the window and opened it for the dour-looking brown owl, who refused to come inside. Remus untied the letter from its leg and the owl immediately ruffled its feathers and flew away.  
  
The smells of smoke and cold now mixed with the smell of age that had wrapped itself around the kitchen. The light was bright as he unrolled the letter.  
  


_Mr. Lupin --  
Due to your extensive absences, and an apparent malaise for your job in general, we have made the decision to let you go from your position at Bosch Booksellers. Your last paycheck shall be delivered at the end of the pay period.  
-- H. Bosch_  


  
Remus dropped the letter to the floor just as he had dropped the newspapers. He briefly considered lighting another match and letting the whole house go up in flames, but he knew that it would never burn.  
  
The brass pots hung in the kitchen, reflecting the early morning sun like relics. Remus stood in by the window, studying the empty room. Reflecting on it, he decided that there was no possible way he could stay. He couldn't be here, in this house, any longer.  
  
  



	5. PART IV: Hollowness

_  
  
The sun was down, and all the west was paved with sullen fire. I cried, "Behold! the barren beach of hell at ebb of tide." _  
  
-- Alexander Smith, A Life of Drama  
  


  
PART IV:  
HOLLOWNESS  
  
By the time the sun was beginning to sink below the thick, grasping tree line, Remus was certain of his decision. The kitchen was filled with hot, bloody light, the copper pots shining like rubies, his skin pink like sheets dipped in red water. His mother sat at the kitchen table, scarlet with dying sunlight and prophecy.  
  
Where will you go, my darling? she asked, her husky voice thin.  
  
I don't know, he replied. He could not meet her dark eyes, could only look so far as her bright cheeks.  
  
Come visit me, she said.   
  
I'll -- try.  
  
Her skin seemed flat, like paint on a canvas, in this light. Remus was a little afraid of her. Her white nightgown rippled around her thin body like cream. It's very lonely, Remus.  
  
It can't be lonely, Mum, he said. There are plenty of other people around.  
  
No, it's quite lonely. You should come and see me.  
  
Remus pursed his lips. I'll try. I promise.  
  
Good. I'd just die without you, my darling.  
  
Don't say that, he whispered. Please don't.  
  
You're killing me as it is, Remus, dear, she said. I might as well be dead.  
  
Please don't . . .  
  
You're terrible, you know. Terrible.  
  
Mum . . . He looked away from her flat, orange skin, the hollows of her face nearly black with shadow. He stared instead out the window.   
  
Why did you put me here? Why did you put me here, Remus? Why are you doing this to me?  
  
It wasn't my fault, he said quietly. He could feel tears gathering, unbidden, in his eyes. Please don't . . .  
  
Why are you doing this to me?  
  
It was your own fault! he shouted. A silence fell between them, and, finally, blinking the wetness from his eyes, he looked back at her, repentant. He found himself faced not with his mother but with Sirius, and he felt a scream rise in his throat.  
  
Why are you doing this to me, Remus? Sirius asked.  
  
Remus could neither release the scream nor force it away. He swallowed thickly, but to no avail; he wanted to shake from fear but couldn't find it in himself.  
  
Sirius' eyes were cast into dark shadow, just like his mother's had been, and his skin was the same dull orange. His hair lay flat like another shadow around his face. Why did you do this to me, Remus?  
  
When Remus finally managed to breathe, he felt sick. Get out of here, he murmured. Get out.  
  
I can't, Remus. I can't. I'm stuck here.  
  
No -- He could feel the panic rising in him. No -- You're not here. You're -- not.  
  
You put me here. Why did you do this to me, Remus?  
  
I didn't. I didn't do anything.  
  
You put me here, Sirius persisted.  
  
Remus stood up quickly, knocking his chair back. It's your own fault! It's your own bloody fault! He stared at the figure before him, still as a stone. Get out of my house! Get out! You aren't here! You aren't! You're not real. It's your own fault -- get out!  
  
You haven't got your wand, my darling, said the figure in front of him, which was slowly becoming more shadow and less skin as the sun set below the trees. What can you do without your wand? Not a whole lot.  
  
Please! Get out! Get out!  
  
This is my house, my darling. You can't throw me out. His mother laughed.  
  
Stop it! Leave me alone!  
  
You called me up. Don't you want me here?  
  
I hope you die! Remus shouted, backing away from the table. I hope you both die!  
  
When he felt his back hit the back door, he turned, and forced the latch open. He shoved at the door and stepped into the muddy, reddish darkness. There was no sound from the kitchen, save for that of the breeze rustling the newspapers on the kitchen floor.  
  
I hope you die! he shouted back at the newspapers, and a bird fled a nearby tree in fright.  
  
  
  
It struck him as strange that the streets of Muggle London could be so jubilantly placid. It was strange, but not unwelcome.  
  
Here, nobody had really recognized Voldemort's rise to power, and certainly no one knew he had been defeated by an infant. Here, there was no manic celebration of a newfound peace, nor a fatal undercurrent of sick grief. There were no Mrs. Pettigrews here in Muggle London, and certainly no Remus Lupins. Here, life had been revolving on its cheerfully benign axis all along.  
  
There was no mistake that Remus liked it that way. He liked the unassuming bustle of businesspeople and tourists, the faceless interaction on the underground, but, most of all, he liked the way he could cut quietly through the crowded sidewalks with complete anonymity. He liked the hollowness of Muggle London. If he were to backtrack a mile or so, and reenter Diagon Alley, he would inevitably have been surrounded by a strange mix of relief, despair, and complete confusion. The wizarding world, although overjoyed by Voldemort's defeat, had been left in a muddled, impenetrable fog for two months now, and no one quite knew what do to with their new liberty.  
  
Remus could not bear it. He did not want to see the people he knew rebuild their lives. He did not want to meet old friends as they finally came out of hiding, to finally read the obituaries that had been withheld for security reasons. In fact, he wanted nothing to do with any of it.  
  
The clean Muggle architecture was a comfort. It had nothing to do with the world he'd been living in for the past ten years. He felt blissfully out of context.  
  
The automatic doors opened with a hiss and he stepped into the warm lobby. There were plastic Christmas garlands hanging limply on the walls, and he could just see a heavily decorated plastic tree in the next room. A nurse in a white uniform sat at the front desk, reading a magazine. He cleared his throat and she looked up at him.  
  
The nurse did not seem impressed. Sign in, please, was all she said.  
  
He signed in on a clipboard perched on the very edge of the desk. His name, as he looked at it, seemed more and more like a series of runes, inscrutable.  
  
Who are you here to see?  
  
Remus blinked, and his name was his own again. he asked.  
  
Who are you here to see?  
  
He looked down at her dumbly. Her reddish hair, curled neatly away from her white, narrow cheekbones, was suddenly repulsive. She seemed like something on a printed page, glossy and flat, staring up at him with that expectant look in her empty cow eyes. . . . Mrs. Rose Lupin, he said finally.  
  
Right, then, the nurse said shortly, looking back down at her desk. Remus noticed that her magazine was still in her hand. Room 205. Good day. With that, her gaze dropped back to her magazine and it was once more as if he did not exist at all.  
  
He made his way into the next room, past the overburdened Christmas tree, and up the staircase. On the second level, he met a woman sitting on the floor, her legs tucked up under her, her pale pink robe gaping open to reveal her skin. He looked away and pretended he did not see when she reached out to him.  
  
Room 205 was empty. His mother was sitting in a chair by the window, vacant. She did not turn when he knocked on the door frame, nor did she look away from the window when he called to her.  
  
I'm leaving, he said to her back. I'm going very far away. Her dull brown hair was parted neatly down the middle, hanging limply over her shoulders, her neck a pale white column. I don't know if I'll come back. So I'm sorry for that. But I promised I'd come, and, you see, I have.  
  
He could hear trucks going past outside. The hum of the air through the vents was loud, and the air was papery and hot. He sighed.  
  
I'm leaving, he said again. She did not move.  
  
He wished, suddenly, that he had brought flowers. She came back to herself in fits and starts, he knew, and although she did not recognize her son now, she might appreciate some flowers sitting on her faux wood table when she remembered his name.  
  
This vision of his mother haunted him more than the other ghost had. This woman, unobscured by shadow and red sunlight, was ultimately more terrible. He saw in her hollow eyes the same sort of listless fog that he saw in the eyes of Frank and Alice Longbottom. While Voldemort had reduced them to this, something much more inescapable had claimed his mother.  
  
It was a cold comfort, telling himself she was better off here. It was his father's insurance that was paying for the place. He couldn't leave her alone in the family home. While he was certain she couldn't burn the place down, he knew she could very easily rot away inside those walls. He thought, in fact, that she had been doing that very thing for years.  
  
  
  
The sky was red again when he left, the air violently cold. He paused by a fire hydrant to adjust his jacket and wrap his scarf more tightly around his neck. The wall of the building across the street, an smooth granite shape, was bathed in fractured red light, and Remus turned away quickly.   
  
He didn't go to the Leaky Cauldron and use the floo to get home, though his bags were packed and waiting for him. He thought it might be the bloody light that kept driving him onwards, though he couldn't say to where or for what purpose. Even to him, his path had no particular direction or logic.  
  
Long past the the tall Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square, he passed a rather seamy barber shop. A balding man in a white smock was trimming another man's hair. The man in the chair was huge and broad-shouldered and his short hair was a malarial yellow. Remus stood by the window, bathed in the warm light pouring from inside. The barber, it occurred to him, reminded him of his Uncle David, and he pushed the door open.  
  
Have a seat, the barber said curtly, not looking up from his client's scalp.  
  
Remus took off his hat and scarf and sat down in a chair with plastic seat cushions. He crossed his legs at the ankle and twisted his hat between his hands. Eventually, the barber removed the plastic cape from his client's shoulders and the yellow-haired man stood and got out his wallet. He handed the barber a crisp bank note and, pulling on a heavy winter jacket, left without even glancing at Remus.  
  
The barber picked up a broom and began sweeping up the short hairs that scattered the floor. What can I do for you? he asked, his eyes on his work.  
  
I suppose, Remus said slowly, I thought I might get my hair cut. You aren't closing, are you?  
  
Can stay open a few more minutes. The man bent down and Remus heard some joint pop loudly. He swept the hair into a dust pan and stood. You've got a good bit of hair, don't you.  
  
I do, he replied. It was one of his few vanities. It wasn't especially remarkable, his hair. In fact, it was straight and a pale mousy brown and rather dry. There were already brittle strands of grey in it. But it was not one of his vanities because it was so unbearably beautiful. He liked his hair because it was long, down to his shoulder blades now, and it was the way his scalp felt when he ran his fingers through it that really made it seem an indulgence. I think I ought to cut it.  
  
If you want, the barber said. Remus could see that he was a careless, easy man, nothing like his uncle.  
  
I think I do.  
  
Take your coat off, then.  
  
Remus stood and started to remove his coat. When it was halfway off his shoulders, he stopped. The barber looked at him expectantly, the fluorescent lights reflecting off his scalp. Remus looked back, and felt a lump rising in his throat. I don't think -- I'm sorry. I've changed my mind. I'm wasting your time. He quickly jammed his hat back on his head and wrapped his scarf around his neck like a noose. I'm sorry, he said again, and left. He might have at least one pleasure left to him, he thought bitterly as he turned away from the barber's.  
  
The winter wind tugged at his open jacket, and he swallowed against the thing in his throat. It felt like tears, but he had told himself that he would not cry. He did not cry. Men like Voldemort and Sirius Black did not deserve his tears.  
  
He passed a storefront display of glowing silver soup tureens and engraved platters. The light reflected off their polished surfaces was bright, almost blinding. It seemed like dawn was emanating from that crowded window. Until the real sun rose, sharp and unforgiving over the Thames, that false dawn echoed in his thoughts and reminded him of one thing: That the future had not yet been determined, and that, like most promises, was painful at best.  
  
  



	6. PART V: Flight

_Never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention._  
  
-- Peter Beagle, The Last Unicorn  
  


PART V:  
FLIGHT  
  
Asleep on a train again. He dreamed that same old dream, that he was reaching through silver bars for Lily's hand. It was strange. Why never James' hand? Why never Peter's hand?  
  
Why never Sirius' hand?  
  
He didn't know, although he was privately glad that it was never Sirius he was reaching for. Remus had long since passed the point where thinking of him brought on a thick sense of horror. The horror was leaner now, though he still dreamed of Sirius from time to time. The dreams were never fully pleasant, but he never expected them to be.  
  
He did not dream about other people, save his mother and occasionally Snape or Harry, or what he imagined Harry must look like now. All the other beings in his dreams were not quite human, real-but-not, anonymous, worthless. Sometimes they suggested other people, but they never mattered. Those dreams were quickly forgotten.  
  
He was dreaming that he was reaching through sturdy silver bars for Lily Potter's hand. Whether he was reaching into or out of the cage was always unclear, and the whole dream was shrouded in a preternatural darkness. The silver made him think he was inside, instead of out, but it was entirely impossible to tell.  
  
Usually, he continued to grope for Lily's smooth, white hand, though he could never see it. A bronzy black filled the spaces around the bars and swallowed up anything beyond them. The silver burned his arm, and often by the time he woke from the dream, his forearm was blistered and bleeding. The hissing sound of burning flesh was often the only sound that accompanied this dream.  
  
But, this time, it was different. There were soft voices, children's voices, maybe. They were a low, pleasant murmur as he reached futilely for Lily's hand. Slowly, the darkness around the cage lifted, and the bars seemed to melt away.   
  
Remus found himself standing in the dim half-light of a hallway in Hogwarts. He was facing out into a dull light, which slowly revealed itself to be diffuse sunlight shining through cloud cover. He realized that he was looking out into the courtyard, where the archaic fountain stood directly before him, pointing straight into the white sky, portentous.  
  
He stepped out, into the courtyard, towards the fountain, which was not running. He wondered if it was winter, but he remembered the water falling there even when it was snowing.  
  
Somebody said his name and he turned, but there was no one there. The sound of the voice fell flat, without a single echo, and he did not dare speak. He was worried, and peered back into the dim hallway. The doors swung shut just with a heavy bang and Remus awoke to a frigid train car, familiar even in darkness, still as death and even more foreboding.  
  
  
  
He woke halfway to Portsmouth, his hand empty of the book he had been reading. He leaned down, searching for it, groping around on the bumpy, synthetic carpet. It turned up under his seat, but he had lost his page. Every page of his book looked miserably similar to the one before it, and he could not tell where he had left off.  
  
Weak, ugly light leaked down from the fluorescents on the ceiling, and the sound of the train passing along the tracks was heavy. There was a plump young woman with short, red nails sitting next to him. She was dressed in Muggle clothing, but he recognized her vaguely from Hogwarts. He didn't know what year she'd been in -- perhaps a year or two above him, perhaps below -- nor did he remember her name.  
  
She, too, seemed to have some vague recollection of his face. When he stopped thumbing hopelessly through his book, she said, We ought to be there soon.  
  
he said.  
  
You slept for a good long while. She smiled, a small, pleasant expression. But you didn't snore, if that's what you're worried about.  
  
He did not look at her again and watched the scenery flash by instead. The sky was threatening snow again. He did not want to talk to her. He did not want to look at her soft round Hufflepuff face or her white hands and cherry-red nails. Her knees stuck out from under the hem of her blue dress, he had noticed, and it made her seem like a little girl. He did not want to think that such a girl could be in the same position as he was. The thought was repulsive, that someone with such pale, round, bare knees could know what it was like to lose loved ones, to see ashy houses, to be caught up in a loneliness so great it had driven people to madness.  
  
The world beyond the thick, foggy window shuddered by, alternately dull green and dull grey. He did not bother wiping away the condensation on the glass. It could not look so vastly different.   
  
Remus was tired. His trip home last night -- this morning, more aptly -- had been ugly and quick. He had Disapparated home just after dawn and made tea. The day before, he had cleaned up all the scattered newspapers on the kitchen floor and thrown them out with no ceremony at all. He had told himself that he would never cry, and, most times, it was not an especially difficult promise to keep. Certainly, old newspapers were nothing to cry over.  
  
  
  
He did not see the girl from the train again. Once they'd retrieved their baggage, she disappeared into the terminal, and he was glad of it. He did not want to see her again, and, in fact, planned on erasing her completely from his memory. Some days, he wished he could simply Obliviate the last fifteen years of his life from his mind.  
  
He carried his luggage -- one wrinkly, brown leather portmanteau -- out of the train station. A cold wind was pulling pearly clouds across the sky as if by a string. There was no end to them, no gaps between them filled with blue sky. There had been a threat of snow in London, but now the clouds seemed to have lost this power over the earth and were content to be tugged along by the wind, impotent.  
  
It would have been a short trip by Floo, but he had decided that he would rather travel by boat over the Channel. He wanted to see France approach on the milky horizon, wanted to see the shoreline where Napoleon's sculpted face had once stared out at England, ravenous. There was something familiar in that painful hunger, something he knew very well indeed. He felt he might belong in a place where such voracious men lived. He felt he might be able to open his mouth in such a place, and not be blamed for trying to swallow the world whole.  
  
He boarded the boat and a narrow man in a yellow slicker took his ticket from him. The man then informed him that there was a cabin, should he wish to go inside, and that there were lavatories there, as well. Remus thanked the man blandly, and went to stand at the front of the boat. He was early, although a few people from his train had come on board after him. He recognized their coats and luggage, but not their faces, and he did not look any harder. If he closed his eyes, Remus could imagine them all away.  
  
He did not close his eyes, however, and instead stared out at the dull horizon, at France in the distance, at the dirty, thick clouds. He stood there, hands wrapped neatly around the metal railings, for upwards of a half an hour before the ferry's engines rumbled underfoot. Finally, the chains holding them down to the dock were thrown off and they broke away.  
  
The wind as they made their languid way towards Cherbourg was just as cold as it was in Portsmouth, just as cold as it had been in London. It made him hope that, high up in the North Sea, somewhere without a real and concrete location, the wind was even colder. He fixed his eyes on the horizon and pulled his coat more tightly around him.  
  
  
  
Remus rented a cheap hotel room that night, and lay under the bright, dry light until very early in the morning. He tried to make plans as he stared up at the white ceiling, but he found he could not think of anything at all.  
  
The sound of hot air blowing through the vents was an unfamiliar and ugly sound. Somewhere in Cherbourg, not very far away, there was the sound of sirens. Remus imagined that some nearby building was on fire, slick smoke pouring from its windows into the dark sky. He thought that if he were to open his own small window, he would be able to smell it. He fell asleep thinking of this anonymous burning building, and dreamed he was being burned alive.  
  
He watched as his mother stepped into the ashes of his pyre. She bent down, scooping his bone-white remains into a wooden box. She picked up something hard and grey and shaped like a fist. Remus knew the moment he saw it that it was his heart.  
  
His mother turned to him, her eyes glassy, and said, Nous ne pouvons pas connaitre personne. Nous ne pouvons pas connaitre un homme apres un moment, un jour, apres dix ans, vingt ans. Non -- nous ne pouvons pas connaitre personne.   
  
he said.  
  
She shook her head and said, and shut the box containing his ashes. A glass table materialized out of nowhere, without a spell or a wand or even a single breath drawn. His mother set the box on the table and produced an old, iron key from the pocket of her dress, which she used to lock to box up tightly. She replaced the key and put her hand on top of the box, palm flat against the smooth wood. Je vais ce jeter dans le rive.  
  
With that, she picked up the box and turned sharply. She threw it into a river he hadn't even noticed before. There was a splash, and he ran towards the river, desperate to see his own remains one last time. The box had opened upon impact with the water, and his ashes were floating on the inky water like chalk dust. He saw his heart bobbing along towards some mysterious destination like a stony ship.  
  
  
  
Originally, he had planned to go to Paris and stay there until he'd spent most or all of the money he had with him, save enough for another train ticket.   
  
But Remus did not leave Cherbourg, not once he'd spent all of his savings, nor for a long time afterwards. He continued to keep the tacky little hotel room. He stayed away from the Wizarding part of town and took French classes twice weekly. He got a job as a bellboy at a little inn and found that he liked the silence of the job, the fact that it required no intimate personal contact and only a rudimentary understanding of the French language.  
  
The classes had, after six months, done very little to decode his mother's words to him in his dream. As the weeks went by, he remembered less and less of what she'd said. He knew that she had spoken, and he could recall the tone of her voice, but he eventually forgot the actual words she'd spoken completely. Never again did he dream in French -- except for the dreams in which Sirius appeared as a crow and told him, Je t'aime. That didn't count, though, because every romantic in the world knew what that meant.  
  
He did not have the energy to move away. It felt as if he'd used up all his momentum on the trip from London. Instead of packing up his few things and leaving, he took to sitting on a bench at the harbor and watching the ships. Sometimes he would buy a meal and sit out on the wooden bench and eat straight from the wrapper. On the whole, he tried to spend as little time as possible in his room, which was not difficult. He didn't mind wandering the streets, even when it was cold or raining. It soothed the restlessness in him, this constant walking. He would window shop, or wander through the public parks. When he felt he had money to spare, he would go to a museum and walk around all day, until he was so hungry that he had to go and eat.  
  
On full moon nights, he Apparated back to his family home and locked himself in the sturdy cage in the basement. He always let himself in through the front door, because he liked walking through the empty house. Somehow, seeing the place gather dust was satisfying.  
  
He knew these monthly visits made his exile incomplete, but he didn't care. Only he and the concierge at the inn knew about them, though it occurred to him that there was no one else left to know. Nevertheless, he always felt like a fugitive when he returned to his little hotel room early in the morning. There was often a thin fog clinging to the streets outside when he collapsed into his bed and slept for a day straight. He would return to work the next afternoon, and the concierge would ask how his poor grandmother was doing. Remus would mumble something in broken French and shrug at any further questions, unsure of how to respond.  
  
It was in Cherbourg that he began to dream about reaching for Lily's hand. He reached and reached until his arm was raw and throbbing, but still could not even see a glimmer of Lily's white skin. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was Lily's hand he was trying to take hold of, and that if he could grasp her hand, everything would be set right again.  
  
  
  
What he appreciated most about France was that there was little there to remind him of his youth. He thought about days past as his youth, as if it had been decades since he'd last seen James and Lily and Peter. Sure enough, his hair was greying. Every morning, when he looked in the mirror, it seemed there was more grey than there had been the previous day. Sometimes, however, he would come across something that reminded him violently of his Hogwarts days, or of the time he spent living with Sirius.  
  
Today was such a day. He was looking at a poster for a second-run Muggle movie, and here it was again, the words La Guerre Des Etoiles aligned in blocky text. He's seen it the first time the summer of 77, when they were all fresh out of school, flushed with success and youth and perhaps even love. He would Apparate almost every day to Brighton, where Sirius and James were staying. They spent full days on the boardwalk that summer, doing absolutely nothing, glorying in their freedom.   
  
July came around, and James left for a vacation with Lily and her family in Germany. Remus and Sirius spent the days during James' absence in the backs of dark cinemas, kissing and groping, and occasionally watching a film. There was something surreal about it, about the flashing colors ahead of them, about the soft whirring noise of the projector overhead, and the feel of the cheap plastic arm rest digging into his side as they kissed.  
  
He stood on the sidewalk, malcontent March wind tugging at his hair and making his cheeks pink. He was strangely moved by the poster, for no good reason.  
  
All the same, he remembered the grainy fabric of the cinema seats, the cool, neat air with an intense fondness. He remembered the sticky taste of of soda on Sirius lips, too, and it almost -- almost -- brought tears to his eyes.  
  
At that moment, someone ran into his shoulder from behind. He jerked and turned, but the man was already passing him. The huge, dark figure went by him, murmuring a subtle Pardonnez moi, his black coat fluttering in the wind. He must have been seven or eight feet tall, it seemed to Remus, and he watched the man disappear around a corner in awe.  
  
  
  
Another memory, fresher and bitter like lemon juice:  
  
He was chopping cheap, fatty pork into thin slices. They couldn't always afford it, and often went without it for weeks. We don't need meat, Sirius had said with a shrug. We're being healthy. Remus had frowned, consumed by the fact that they were not in the least healthy, only extremely poor.  
  
It was the year after they graduated, the summer warm and lazy. It had been late in the day, the sun a fat, golden disk hanging in the darkening sky. He could see it as he cut the meat, descending brilliantly across the city skyline. Occasionally, a black shadow of a bird would swoop across its brightness, making Remus' eyes swim with the contrast.  
  
The pain that blossomed across his hand was sudden and shocking, and he dropped the knife to see that he'd sliced his palm open. It was bleeding heavily, and he swore under his breath.  
  
Sirius rose from his chair and crossed to him like wildfire. He'd no sooner muttered the words than those tough hands were at his wrist, wrapping a tea towel around his hand. Sirius held him there, pressing tight to staunch the blood flow, looking at Remus intently.  
  
You're so careless, he said.  
  
I'm not.  
  
What were you looking at out there?  
  
Remus' blood was soaking through parts of the towel, red and thick and menacing. His hand throbbed, and he could feel Sirius' pulse through the cloth. You shouldn't touch me. I can take care of it.  
  
You were just standing there, staring at it, Sirius protested.   
  
If you'd given me half a second--  
  
What's the problem, Moony? Why can't I help you?  
  
Remus replied, trying to snatch his hand back. Sirius would not let go of Remus' wrist. I'm bleeding all over you. Let go.  
  
Let me help you.  
  
He pulled again, harder, and freed his hand from his lover's grasp. He held it close, pressing the tea towel to his skin. It stung against the wound, and parts of it were already soggy. I can do it! he said. He hated the shrill sound of his voice, but adrenaline and fear were still tingling in his veins. I'm fine, Sirius. I'll do it.  
  
Fine, do it yourself. You're a stupid twat, you know that? Fine. Sirius sounded cruel, unbearable, like a harpy.   
  
Shut up! he said sharply, clutching his hand tight. Shut up. You don't understand anything.  
  
Sirius paused, looking at him. His jaw was tense, his mouth a tight, frustrated line. He let out a sigh and tried again, more gently. So tell me, he said evenly.  
  
I can't. But every time, Sirius -- Every time something like this happens, I worry. There are things the people who write the books just can't know. There are things I don't know -- Things I feel. I _know_ I'm dangerous. I know it. Nobody has to tell me that.  
  
You aren't-- Sirius began, but Remus cut him off sharply.  
  
Shut up, Sirius. You aren't in any positions to tell me whether or not I'm dangerous. I'm dangerous and I know it and I can feel it. And there things I feel -- I feel like my blood is dangerous. There's magic in me that's not in you, Sirius, no two ways about it, and it's magic you don't want.  
  
He walked into the bathroom and proceeded to clean his hand. He wrapped it in a strip of Madam Motley's Healing Gauze, and rinsed the dirty towel in the sink until the water in the bowl ran a pale pink.  
  
He went back to the kitchen, his bare feet silent on the linoleum floor. He found the counter clean and Sirius back at the table as though nothing had happened, reading the _Daily Prophet_ once more. The headlining article was about a strike at Gringott's, and forty-some-odd goblins glared at him from the large picture on the front page. After enchanting the salad to toss itself, Remus dumped the meat and vegetables into a pan and lit the range.  
  
In the near-silence of the kitchen, with only their breathing and the hissing sounds of cooking meat for company, Remus tried to discern whether he had been forgiven or if the matter had been shoved into some corner of Sirius' mind in the company of various other spats. It seemed sometimes that Sirius collected arguments and kept them locked up to treasure like gold. It seemed sometimes that Sirius loved to hold a grudge.  
  
But that night, they made love quietly and Sirius said I love you in the late night dim of their bedroom. Remus kissed his face and knew that in the morning, his wound would be healed and things would be fully restored to their rightful positions.  
  
  



	7. PART VI: De Profundis

Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain . . .   
  
-- Oscar Wilde, De Profundis  


_  
_PART VI:  
DE PROFUNDIS  
  
It was very lucky indeed that neither of them were even a pound heavier than they were. There was hardly enough room to breathe as it was. But Sirius had his hands under Remus' robes, and was working them into his pants to grope his behind. Remus' own arms were wrapped tightly around Sirius' neck, hands tangled in his soft hair, pulling him close.  
  
Night had only just fallen outside the castle, but their tiny, cramped niche was darker than midnight. A tapestry of Maureen the Morbid blocked out the light from the hallway and just to Remus' right, a crumbling portion stone wall blocked the entrance to a hidden room. He and Sirius were not remotely interested in the secret room this evening.  
  
Sirius' left elbow kept banging into the wall as he squeezed Remus' ass. The concealed door was a little loose, and so every time Sirius knocked into it, it made a clunking noise as it jumped on its hinges. Remus whispered, breaking away for a moment. He didn't have enough breath in his lungs for anything louder than a whisper, and his heart was hammering. Somebody will hear if you keep doing that.  
  
Shut up, you prat, Sirius replied with a breathy laugh. Nobody'll hear. They're all still down at dinner. He squeezed Remus' right buttock, and Remus drew in a sharp breath.  
  
There was no doubt in his mind that somebody would, eventually, hear them, but, with the pad of Sirius' index finger rubbing against his anus, he was at the point where throwing caution to the wind seemed like a very good idea.  
  
He ground his hips hard against Sirius' and fixed him with another bruising kiss. He pulled Sirius' head back so that it rested on the stone and kissed his' throat, hard and high on the pretty column of skin. He would leave marks, he thought as he rubbed breathlessly against his companion, and the very idea sent shivers up his thighs.  
  
  
  
Nobody told Remus what happened to Lily and James Potter. Nobody showed up at his door to tell him that Peter Pettigrew was dead. Nobody had ever sent him letters warning him that Sirius Black was a traitor.  
  
He found out all of these things on his own, like the rest of the world, in the morning edition of _The Daily Prophet._ The headlines caused him to drop his teacup on the linoleum floor, and he stood there amidst shards of cheap china and scalding hot tea, reading about the effective end of his life.  
  
It was five-thirty in the afternoon before the knock at the door came. The tea had evaporated amidst the pieces of china, leaving a dark brown stain on the blue and white patterned linoleum. Remus was sitting in a chair at the square card table that served as a dining table. The sun had long since passed over the apartment building, and so the little kitchen was cast in some shadow. He did not hear the knock the first time, but when it came again, hard and quick, he got awkwardly to his feet and answered the door.  
  
said the short, harsh wizard he was faced with. Had a bit of a time finding you, you know.  
  
That had been the idea, hadn't it? That was why they'd sold off the majority of their possessions, wasn't it? That was why they'd moved five times in the past fifteen months, why they'd been eating off a glorified card table, why their whole life fit in a creased leather portmanteau, a duffel bag and a battered trunk. Yes, he knew.  
  
We've come to collect Sirius Black's personal effects, the man continued. If you don't comply--  
  
said another voice. He became aware that a tall, slouch-shouldered witch was standing beside the man. She dwarfed him, but he was broad and sure of himself, whereas she seemed ready to fold up on herself and disappear. Her voice, however, was kind and unquestionable. Go gently on him.  
  
Who are you? Remus asked hoarsely. He had not been crying, nor, in fact, making any sound at all, but the words came to him with great difficulty. It was clear enough that they both worked for the Ministry of Magic, but he wanted to hear it from them before anything else happened.  
  
I'm Elsie Grey, and this is Boris Borgins. We're with the Ministry, Mr. Lupin, and we've come to collect Mr. Black's things, I'm afraid.  
  
You'll have heard, I assume, Boris said crisply. He had a handlebar mustache and dark, heavy eyebrows that curled up at the ends.  
  
I saw, Remus said. In the _Prophet._  
  
You'll understand, then, why we have to take his things, Elsie said.   
  
There was a pause, and Remus became aware of how tightly he was gripping the door handle. I'm -- he began, but could find no words.  
  
Ministry orders, Lupin, said Boris. You had best let us in.  
  
Elsie said again.  
  
Remus drew in a slow breath and stepped back to let them in. Boris stepped forward and he seemed to fill the tiny apartment. He looked around at the Muggle lighting disdainfully. Elsie followed him.  
  
Where's Mr. Black's room, if you don't mind, Mr. Lupin? Elsie asked.  
  
He pointed in the direction of their room. His things -- His things are in the top two drawers. Boris swept into the bedroom, and began taking things indiscriminately and throwing them into into a large, black duffel bag.  
  
Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Lupin, Elsie said.  
  
I don't want any of his things, Remus said dully.  
  
The tall witch looked at him appraisingly. Remus looked away, watched Boris tossing things from the bottom of the dresser into the bag. Finally, he felt Elsie look away from him. Which of these books and papers are Mr. Black's? she asked.  
  
Remus sighed. He did not look away from Boris' wide back. He was sweeping the things off the dresser top and into his bottomless bag. The letters on the kitchen counter . . . all that's his. And as for the books, I don't know. They had shared their possessions for so long that most things were not his or Sirius' but theirs.  
  
Perhaps you could help me, then? she asked delicately.  
  
Boris was pulling the sheets off the bed and opening the pillows with his wand. After a time, Remus said, All right, and Elsie handed him another black duffel bag. The Ministry insignia was printed on it in white, followed by the words SENSITIVE: To Be Kept Under Lock And Key, Or Else.  
  
Silently, he began to put books he knew to be Sirius' in the bag. A copy of _Quidditch Through the Ages_ went in, followed by _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ and an envelope of sheet music for a piano he'd left behind at Grimmauld Place five years ago. Pictures and precious mementos -- those that Boris had not already claimed -- went in, too. He tossed in a string of bottle caps, a favorite quill, sheafs of blank parchment, a pocket watch that spat every hour on the hour. He had no idea what use the Ministry could possibly have for any of these things, for this junk, but he nevertheless dumped it all into the bag, feeling almost as unflinching as Boris.   
  
Will these things be returned to me? he asked quietly. Elsie was bent over the stacks of mail on the counter, sorting out those addressed to Sirius.  
  
I don't know, she said, looking up. Her thin, hunched shoulders and narrow neck made her look rather like a bird of prey.   
  
Seems unlikely, Boris called from the bedroom, where he was apparently still rummaging through their bedding. Black's too dangerous for all that. And he's got no relatives that'd want it, anyway.  
  
I'll put in a good word, Elsie promised softly, looking at Remus' face.  
  
Don't bother, he said. He swallowed against something traitorous in his throat. I don't want any of it. They can burn it, for all I care.  
  
Elsie looked almost hurt, but said nothing. She continued to sort through the mail, then, along with Remus, searched through the kitchen cabinets. Finally, she took Remus' bag from him and put it inside hers. I think I have all of it, Boris, she called. Her voice sounded light, as if she were calling a child in to tea.  
  
Boris said, Nearly done! and there was silence again.  
  
After another few minutes, Remus looked away from the darkening window. The sky outside was the same twilight blue as Elsie's robes. Would you like a cup of tea? he asked, solemn.  
  
Oh -- No, dear, she said. It occurred to Remus that she was probably old enough to call him at least forty, if not older.  
  
Just then, Boris emerged from the small bathroom, the duffel bag clutched in his powerful fist. Ready to go? he asked.  
  
Elsie nodded, and Boris opened the door and walked out as if it were his own home. Elsie said, Thank you, Mr. Lupin. Best of luck, and followed him out. Remus said nothing, and shut the door only when they had Disapparated.  
  
Boris had not only torn open the pillows, but also the mattress in his righteous determination. Feathers were strewn on the floor and stuck to Remus' bare feet when he walked around the room, trying to determine what had been left in the wake of this intrusion.  
  
The answer was: Not much. All of his own clothes were gone in addition to Sirius'. Boris had cleared out the bath, too, and even the bottle of shampoo had been plucked off the rim of the tub. The apartment was basically empty. Everything of importance was gone. He made the decision as he stood there, looking at the empty cabinet above the sink, that he would throw out everything he could spare and leave the apartment in the morning.  
  
He worked through the night, throwing all but his most precious possessions into heavy plastic garbage bags. He felt gripped by intense reckless abandon as he emptied the flat of the things that meant the most to him. There was an odd rush to it, rather like being overjoyed and nauseated at the same time.   
  
He carried the plastic bags downstairs around dawn. The stairs were steep, and he had to pause at each of the three landings to catch his breath. The bags should not have felt so heavy, he thought. They were almost unbearable, but Remus lifted them up each time and made his way out to the large dumpster behind the building, where he threw them away.  
  
He went back to the flat and wrote a note for the landlady before falling asleep on the sofa. They had transfigured it from a lawn chair, and its cushions had a tendency to turn into plastic webbing occasionally. Remus awoke later that morning with lines impressed deeply into his cheek and hand.  
  
He packed up the things he had determined to keep into the portmanteau, left the note for the landlady taped to her office door, and left.  
  
He spent most of the day in a Muggle cinema in London, watching a James Bond film again and again. He modified the usher's memory every time he came in to sweep up. The theater was dark and cool and mostly empty, and that mattered much more than what was on the tall screen. By the time it began to fill up with the evening crowd, he was hungry enough to go out on the street again.  
  
The evening got dark quickly, the autumn air cool and slow. It occurred to him as he stood in line at a McDonald's that his only real friends were dead. Later, in a public lavatory, as he vomited up his dinner, he realized that Voldemort was gone.  
  
He slept in a public park that night, the portmanteau under his bench and spelled to start screaming if it was stolen. Quite early the next morning, a policeman woke him and told him to move off. He apologized wearily, let himself into one of the portable park toilets, squashing his luggage with in him, and Apparated back to his mother's family home.  
  
May had seen the house empty. He had not been able, then, to dispose of his mother's things. Most of his father's things were lying around, too, since his mother, like her son, had been unwilling to discard a loved one's possessions. But spring had seeped away into summer and now it was November. This time, he didn't have any problem gathering up his mother's robes and his father's suits and packing them away.  
  
He could not bear to pack up his own things, but he was equally unwilling to sleep in his childhood room. Instead, he moved those things he would actually use into the master bedroom. He had lost all of his clothes to the Ministry. The clothes he'd left at home, although ungainly and occasionally too short in the leg, would have to do until he felt up to shopping. It seemed a ludicrously simple task, but even the thought of it made him slightly ill. So he picked out his clothes, and some of his books, and sundry other little things, and made his parents' bedroom his own. Once he was settled, he locked the door to his old bedroom both with key and with a spell, hoping he would never have to go in there again.  
  
He put the boxes containing his parents' things in the low-ceilinged, slant-floored, little attic. Everything was coated in dust and haughty sunlight shone down in thick blocks from the scummy skylights. He shoved the boxes away in a corned and decided to forget about him.  
  
  
  
Summer in France was unbearably hot, and he decided to move north. He went to the wizarding bank in Cherbourg and had some of his money sent from his account at Gringott's. He exchanged the majority of it for Francs, and he left with just enough money in his pocket to buy a train ticket and a night or two at a hotel wherever he wound up.  
  
At the train station, he stared up at the ticket board, considering the Franc-to-Galleon and Franc-to-Pound exchange rates. He really know where most of the places on the chart were. He could pick out some of them, like and He struggled silently with these words, feeling claustrophobic, panicked, caught up in the desperate need to leave this sweltering country. He finally found which was both northern and easily comprehensible.  
  
He bought the cheapest ticket available on a four o'clock train to Hamburg and slipped out of the station, looking for something to do for the next few hours. He spotted a small bookshop and dragged his portmanteau across the street and into the store.  
  
The store's interior reminded him vaguely of the library in his family's home. The shelves were tall, with rolling ladders that had seen better days. Everything was dim and there was the occasional plush arm chair shoved into a nook or corner. The air smelled hot and much like rotting newsprint. He checked his watch, and noted that he had two and a half hours before he should be back at the station to catch his train. He knew very well that he could fill that time easily in a shop such as this, and was glad, as always, for the distraction.  
  
  
  
He was seated next to a sallow man with white hair who had already fallen asleep when Remus boarded. He had the longest nose Remus had ever seen, and he imagined that the man must be incredibly old.  
  
As the train started to move with a soothing, rolling motion, Remus removed his book from its paper bag and opened it. He skipped the preface and any other opening remarks the editors had cared to include in favor of the real meat of the piece.   
  
By the time he had reached Hamburg, he was quite ready to throw the book away. It was very late, and the lights on the train had been on since sundown. Reading in the half-dark had strained his eyes, and his head hurt, which only added to his indignation.   
  
When he got off the train, he lugged his bag over to the nearest dust bin and threw the book forcefully into it. Suffering is one very long moment,' indeed, he muttered, and headed heavily towards the door.  
  
  
  
Did you . . . ? Sirius' hands slid slowly over his bare back, moving over his vertebrae.  
  
Did I what? he asked. His face was pressed into a pillow, making his voice sound muffles. His breath was hot and damp and close.  
  
After I'd-- His narrow hand did not stop stroking Remus' skin. The world was dark and peaceful behind Remus' lowered eyelids. After they'd taken me away . . . How was it for you?  
  
Remus turned his head and breathed in air that was not fresh, but at least cool. He craned his neck to look up at Sirius. He sat there, his lap barely covered by blankets, his ribs visible like scars, the hair on his chest thinner than Remus remembered. He seemed more tired than Remus could even imagine.  
  
It had taken Sirius a long time to work up to asking this question. Six months, at least. He had expected Sirius to ask when he first showed up at the Lupin family home. Apparently, Azkaban had -- Remus could not know what Azkaban had done to Sirius. If anyone could know, it was Sirius, but even he did not seem to fully grasp the chanes it had wrought.  
  
It was . . . long, he said finally.  
  
He continued to look at Sirius, at his sad, blue eyes, and Sirius looked back at him, and he felt that, inexplicably, they had come to an understanding.  
  



End file.
